


Thrush

by IanMuyrray



Series: Muy's OtherOutlanderTales [1]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IanMuyrray/pseuds/IanMuyrray
Summary: Roger goes sailing to meet mermaid Bree





	Thrush

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous said: Roger talks a lot about his time on a fishing boat as a youth. How about a story about this aspect of his life?

 

_**6 August 2009** _

 

_Last night, after a storm, a sailboat was found capsized off the coast of Orion Beach. It’s owner, Roger Wakefield, has been reported missing. Several personal effects have been recovered from the wreck. Any sightings or tips should be reported to the local sheriff’s office immediately._

* * *

 

**5 August 2009**

Roger was a simple man who led a simple life in a simple cottage outside a coastal village.

He was a teacher, a musician, a sailor. He lived quietly and alone; he almost never traveled over land, he didn’t own a television. Regretfully, he did own a laptop as something functional to get him through school days where he could email over-concerned parents  _yes, believe it or not, your child did deserve this terrible grade._ He liked routine: he was early to bed, early to rise, and always went sailing on Sunday mornings.

His sailboat,  _Thrush_ , was his most prized possession. She was long-limbed and tall, elegant in its curved prow and graceful form, her sails robust and energetic when extended in the wind. He found her at the marina, where she bobbed and creaked in dark green water, waiting for him.

Under his arm was a basket of seashells he had collected. A gift.

He untied her and the rope scratched dryly on the inside of his palm. He hoisted up the dripping anchor, settled it on the deck.  _Thrush_ swayed slightly under his feet, responding to his weight, following the open ocean’s teasing waves. Already, he could smell the water, feel the salt in his hair and on his cheeks.

He took to the water, his jacket whipping against his body in the wind. The only sound was the fading call of birds, the increasing white noise of wind. He grunted as he positioned the main sail, tied the line. He gripped the wheel at the helm, turning it away from the coast.

There was a cave he always sailed towards. He had the map memorized; his electronic coordinates and radio sat silent, unused, blinking blearily in red, white, and blue on the dashboard. Not that he had used those things to find this cave in the first place.   
  


Roger found the world too robotic, too technological. Connection had become artificial, and annoyingly constant; his cell phone, his wallet of credit cards, sat on a table in his cottage. No use for those things on the sea. The sea, like Roger, only wanted simple things.

With a thrill in his belly,  _Thrush_  heeled, port tack, as she picked up speed. He took a big breath of air, delighting how the crispness of sea wind inflated him. He closed his eyes and turned his face to the morning sun, dim behind cloud cover, but then again, the sun was never that bright. He was alight with worship for the sea salt air, the roll of waves, the gusts of wind.

Prodded by instinct, he knew exactly when he arrived where he wanted; the cave was in sight, none too far away. A fog had settled, and the sky rolled a deep gray. Decidedly gloomy, and eerily still, the wind suddenly dropped, and  _Thrush_  lurched. The still before the storm.

His hands trembled as he relaxed the sails. He sat carefully at the starboard edge, basket of seashells at the ready. He blinked into the dark, swirling water, seeing his shadow distort then realign in the waves, and waited.

Finally, a cloud of bright green in the black, announcing her arrival. Roger stole a quick glance at the seashells, knobby and brittle and pale. He sent up a quick prayer that she would accept them.

He saw her hair first, a graceful web of red in the green cloud. And then her head broke the surface, and she blinked at him, her blue eyes more frightening than the ocean, than the sky, her eyelashes thickened with water droplets. Her brow was well defined, her cheekbones strong - how he wanted to trace them! He could see her shoulders now, the collar bone well defined under the shoulder, the curve of her breast appearing and disappearing in the lap of waves as she tread water. She was distinctly humanoid, but he knew she couldn’t be human. Kelpie of the sea.

He knew she had no name he could pronounce, but he called her Brianna. It fit her, he thought, rooting her to earth even as a creature of water.

 _Hello again._ Her gaze was austere - he must not dally too much.

“You always know when I am here,” he replied, his voice soft.

_Your keel gives you away._

The keel of the  _Thrush_ , he knew, was no different than any other boat, and he sat straight with pride. She knew, like he knew.

“I have a present for ye,” he said, trying to quell the excited shake of his voice, to appear confident. He presented the seashell basket to her.

Her eyes flicked to the basket then back to him, quick as a snake. Her face lit with a smile, the glow like homemade sun tea, and the tension Roger felt vanished. The foreboding environment of their encounter slipped away. This was Brianna, and he had pleased her.

Feeling quite the lovestruck idiot, he grinned at her, and leaned his elbow on the rail, extending the basket to her. She swam forward, the water rushing elegantly around her body. Her hands were pale, long-fingered, the blue of her veins showing through the translucence of her skin.

She gracefully poked through the contents of the basket, her hair dark red and corded as snakes against her pale shoulders. She picked up one shell - a large one, coiled tightly, an ivory color streaked with brown.

 _So beautiful,_  she said, her expression grateful.

He closed his eyes briefly and exhaled a sigh of relief. “They remind me of you,” he breathed. He was certain his voice was lost on the reappearing wind, but he knew that she heard him.

She held the shell at eye-level. _It is too deep here for me to get to the ocean floor. I cannot collect my own. Thank you._

“You’re welcome.”

As if by instinct, he reached out to touch her. She was close to  _Thrush_ , maybe he could.

To his surprise, she accepted his hand, and caught it in her own. Against his skin, her touch was cold, wet, icy, a stone set in dry ice. A touch of death, of violence, of drowning. His palm burned. He nearly flinched and pulled away, but he found that he trusted her. She wouldn’t hurt him. She was everything. He clutched her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. She tasted of salt, and seaweed, and woman. He pressed her hand under his nose and breathed deep; he dared not risk forgetting.

Brianna pulled her hand away, her movements slow, her expression apologetic. The blue of her eyes had shifted somehow, elevated to a world outside of human or myth. Fathomless. His palm ached and burned with her chill, painfully wanting the feel of her again.

No matter where she was, he would find her, could find her. And she him. Of this he was certain. Reluctantly, he looked toward the mast and up at the sky. This morning was a short visit - the clouds warned him of danger, threatening to rip open. He must leave soon.

This was the first they’d touched, though, and Roger felt the ice of it melt into his bones. He had never loved cold as much as he loved it at this moment. He had been a child of winter, preferring to play in snow than sun, safely insulated with snowsuits and mittens. The burn of Brianna’s hand had silently ebbed away, and he looked to his palm. It was red from the cold, and it was wet, like he was a child who had shaped a snowball bare-handed. He made a fist, trapping the feeling, even as he knew the warmth of his own body would erase her touch.

They stared at each other, scared to blink. Brianna was drawn to his warmth, he to her cold. Yes, I am me, and you are you, but I have the strongest sense of me when I am around you.

Without warning, the wind blew a massive gust, and  _Thrush_  rocked dangerously in the chaotic, shifting water; the sky had finally torn open. The sky was nearly black; rain came down in sheets and thunder clapped. Roger seized the metal rail, trying to steady the weight of his body against the boat to prevent being thrown overboard. The rail was slick in the frigidity of the rain, and his hands slipped against it. Brianna disappeared into the blackness of the water, and Roger screamed as the boat capsized.

His world was icy blackness, and his lungs burned as they filled with water. He struggled, his limbs flailing wildly, his brain telling him to slow even as panic set in.

He was going to die, swallowed whole by the ocean he had loved. As if tormenting him, his heart hammered under his rib cage, clawing at life, desperately trying to send oxygen into the cells of his muscles and brain and bone, trying to move him towards open air.

It was peaceful under the waves; quiet; he was suffocating in it.

The redness of her hair was a torch, lit sporadically with flashes of lightning from the world above, swimming towards him like a pulsating starburst in the deep. Even in his terror, he saw the translucent emerald of fish tail.

He had known this about her, of course, but the sight terrorized him. For the first time, he was frightened of her. He swung madly in the prison of water, desperate to grab hold of something, but there was nothing; he tried to get to the surface, he couldn’t.

Then she was there, he had no choice. He lunged for her in desperation, his hands knotting in her hair, grasping at her shoulders and arms and body, movements frantic in the dark water.

She wrapped her arms around his ribs - she was not so cold underwater, and he felt his body equalize to her temperature. He relaxed, secure as an infant. With the speed and skill of lightning, she swam with him in her arms, towards the surface, tendrils of her hair tickling his face.

She came to a stop just before their heads broke the surface. Even as black and red spots of death peppered his vision, he saw her white face tortured in its expression.

Steeling himself with the last ounces of fight, and urged by the fear of death, he kicked against her, trying to gain a foothold on her so he can launch himself upwards, to gulp in oxygen. His nerves were scorched from the lack of air, his body exhausted, and he fought her. But her arms were strong as iron, refusing his movements.

With the sensuality of a lover’s, her hands traveled across his face and body, and he quieted. Trust. He trusted her - and by God, she was beautiful.

Brianna pressed her forehead to his. Roger’s strength dissolved, feeling his body give way to either death or salvation - he didn’t care - as he felt fused with her.

 _Roger_ , came her voice, louder than it had been in the air.  _I can save you._

Please, save me! his mind screamed even as he sensed consciousness give way. Save me, damn you! This is your fault!

She kissed him, and for a moment, Roger felt something like air inflate his lungs. He was greedy, stealing as much as he could get, the sudden - yet temporary -  rush of oxygen making him dangerously lightheaded.

_Come with me._

She wrapped herself around him, a cobra of the water, and began to sink, compelling him down, down, down, away from the surface, the water blacker, denser in each moment.

* * *

 

_**13 August 2016** _

_Due to no reported sightings or evidence of being alive, Roger Wakefield was been declared legally dead. There are no living next of kin._


End file.
